1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a desktop book binder for binding loose sheets of paper into a book and wherein means are provided for aligning the sheets of paper with binding material which has been formed into an L-shape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many techniques have evolved over the past centuries for binding loose sheets of paper into a book. One such teaching uses tapes coated with hot-melt glue and wrap-around folders having hot-melt glue on the inside of their spine. In this method, the tape or folder is wrapped around the edges of the bundle of papers to be bound and the glue is heated. The glue adheres to the paper, the binding process being completed when the glue cools.
A major problem with this method is the accurate alignment of the tape with the edges of the paper. Sophisticated solutions capture both the paper and tape which are brought into alignment using sensors and automated precision mechanisms. This solution is expensive. Another method that may achieve alignment is by preforming the tape's cross section into a U-shape. The paper is placed inside the U and the combination is heated for binding. Because the width of the U is fixed, many different tape sizes must be stocked.
With respect to the folder binding, paper is dropped into the folder and the combination then heated to melt the glue to complete the binding. Like the preformed U-shaped tapes, the widths of the folders are fixed so the user must stock many sizes, thus increasing costs since folders are expensive.
Examples of various binding techniques are disclosed in the following U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,471 to Rome discloses a system wherein a cover folder has an adhesive material in the backbone area; U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,366 to Decker discloses a system wherein an adhesive material is applied to the inside of a folded book cover and a device to fold the book cover; U.S. Pat. No. 3,321,786 to Bollick, Jr. discloses a book binding apparatus wherein a platform is provided for stacking the paper to be bound, a rise element for clamping the stacked edge of paper together, a device for applying an adhesive to the stacked edge of paper and means for heating the adhesive material for a predetermined period of time; U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,617 to Parker discloses an improved binding strip for binding a stack of sheets together; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,736 to Anderson discloses a bookbinder apparatus wherein pages are clamped in a carriage and edges aligned by a vibrator in a first angular position, the carriage rotated for a preheating stage, hot-melt glue applied to the edges and the bound papers then moved to a cooling position.
Printing on thermal binding tapes is also difficult both because the tapes are difficult to align with a printer and because they are not compatible with printer feeding mechanisms. After binding, specialized spine printers are available but they typically print only on the spine and print only in black and white, and are limited to the dimensions of the area they can cover. In addition, when only a few books are thermally bound at a time, professional spine printing is prohibitively expensive. When printing books on demand or in an office environment, the number of books is usually limited. In these cases, after thermal binding, the spine is left blank. This is both annoying and inconvenient. What is thus desired is to provide a binding apparatus which is simple and inexpensive wherein both sheets and folders are easily bound in the apparatus and wherein the binding tapes can be easily printed simply and economically before the binding tapes are inserted into the apparatus even if only a fewbooks are bound at a time.